NRA Winning the Influence Battle Over Gun Control

The gun control debate is clearly one of the most contentious and controversial issues in America today. And the battle over gun control is now being waged through intensive media campaigns from both sides of the political spectrum to influence public opinion and to assert pressure on policy makers. So who's winning? To find out, we turned to objective data provided exclusively to Forbes Insights by Appinions, the influence marketing platform. Keep in mind Forbes Insights has no agenda other than to shed research light on the process of measuring influence and what we can learn from it. The facts are objective, whatever your perspective on the issue may be. We certainly don't aim to promote either side and are just stating the facts of influence and who is leading or gaining ground through the lens of influence.

Forbes Insights and Appinions looked at the data for the week prior to the Sandy Hook tragedy and trended the data over the subsequent 5 weeks to determine the ebb and flow over the gun control debate. We found that the NRA and the pro-gun rights voices are winning the influence battle and will continue to be strong and more influential if the pro gun control voice remains fragmented. On the flip side, the pro gun control voice could certainly gain influence if they establish a more united voice. Here are some other interesting observations from the data:

Republican politicians are missing from the debate. The debate is an influence battle between President Barack Obama’s Democrats and Wayne LaPierre’s NRA. Of the top 25 stakeholders in the debate, there is only 1 prominent Republican politician (Chris Christie – who is pro-gun control). Barack Obama leads the pro-gun control voice with a net influence score of 268. LaPierre leads the anti-gun control side with a net influence score of 240.

It’s a Marathon, not a sprint. It seems the NRA has the stamina to out-run the pro-gun control movement. They are persistent, un-yielding and gaining influence. It will be interesting to see how the pro-gun control voice responds and how the influence between the two groups changes as the debate persists.

The pro-gun rights voice is rapidly gaining influence while the pro-gun control voice has tapered in recent weeks. Momentum is shifting and the gun control debate is becoming a platform benefiting gun rights advocates.

The pro–gun control group is fragmented whereas the pro-gun rights voice is united and strong. Of the top influencers on the pro-gun rights side, the majority of the most prominent voices are from the NRA. The pro-gun control voice is split between Obama and several gun control advocacy groups which dilutes the message.

Below is an infographic meant to bring this data to life.

Gun Control Influence Infographic

Appinions is an innovative data-mining company that measures influence by extracting and aggregating opinions from over 5 million sources including blogs, social networks, forums, and newspaper and magazine articles.

Appinions defines “influencer” as “an individual who expresses a contextually relevant opinion that is meaningful enough to elicit action from others.” Appinions also tracks “share of influence”—the aggregate measure of all influencers and their related score on a particular topic. The company calculates scores based on an individual influencer’s opinions for a given topic. Scores are determined by frequency of actions the opinions generate; credibility of the publications in which the opinions appear; and diversity of publications carrying the opinions.